Dining across the divide: ‘The young have so much idealism – but for him everything was determined by getting the Conservatives elected’ | Life and style
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Oliver, 22, London
Occupation Journalist for ConservativeHome
Voting record Conservative
Amuse bouche Oliver goes to a different park every Sunday to feed the ducks, and he posts where he’s going on Instagram. Others, usually his friends, join him, then they go for a pint
Adrian, 63, West Wycombe
Occupation Retired. Used to work in PR
Voting record Labour or Green. In any general election under first-past-the-post, would vote Labour
Amuse bouche Adrian went coffee-picking in Nicaragua when he was 25 to show solidarity with the Sandinistas. He came away with an understanding of what was going on, and full of hope, which has since been cruelly quashed
For starters
Adrian He was really a nice young guy, a lot younger than I expected.
Oliver He came in wearing shorts. I felt overdressed in chinos. But he was a really friendly guy. We shared a burrata watermelon chaat. Some coconut tofu. Hoisin duck pancakes.
Adrian It was all vegetarian, so it was mock duck. But I don’t know if he knew that.
The big beef
Adrian As far as Oliver is concerned, it’s too easy and too attractive to claim benefits. I think the welfare budget has to be determined by the need that’s there. We shouldn’t do anything that stigmatises or penalises people who need support.
Oliver If the welfare bill keeps going up, no amount of tax is going to be enough. He said, obviously there’s people that need it. And I said, yeah of course, but particularly with young people, it’s been open to exploitation. The number of graduate claimants has gone up massively since Covid. We need to make it easier for businesses to employ people. Current legislation, employer national insurance rises, are making it harder.
Adrian You have all this idealism when you’re young, and I couldn’t quite work out what that was for Oliver. He seemed very politically minded, but in a very strategic, pragmatic way. Everything was determined by what might get the Conservative party elected. Without really any ideas or even an ideology, to be honest.
Oliver I’m a Tory. I believe in fiscal conservatism. The culture war, I don’t really care about that. I think people should be able to live freely.
Sharing plate
Adrian We agreed we needed more housing stock. He thought we needed less regulation, whereas I thought there was a sticking point in terms of developers land-banking and choosing not to build houses, and wanting to build them in inappropriate areas, so you get out-of-town developments where people have to drive everywhere.
Oliver I said we needed to relax the planning system. I mentioned a specific niche recommendation: every window needs to be cleanable by 95% of elderly ladies. He said we need more regulation, the free market has failed. He thinks all new housing developments should have an inbuilt windfarm or energy source. I said that’s going to make it even harder to build houses. He thinks we need to be thinking of the future. I said we’ve got a shortage now – we should worry about the rest later.
For afters
Adrian There’s a clear case for accelerating change, cleaner energy, more electric vehicles, more heat pumps, a working home insulation programme. He challenged that in terms of who would pay for it, whether that would be passed on to consumers and whether people could afford that. My point was that you make polluters pay, to disincentivise pollution.
Oliver We’re both in favour of moving towards an economy that’s more supportive of net zero. We agree that there are job opportunities there. At the end of the day, net zero is an arbitrary target. There’s no real meaning in it. Kemi Badenoch doesn’t deny that climate change exists. She just wants to rethink how to tackle it in a practical way, rather than pursuing a policy blindly, without thinking about the possible consequences on jobs and the economy.
Takeaways
Adrian He’s clearly got the ambition, but maybe he will find a different way to channel it. I don’t know. It was a really nice evening and he’s a nice young man.
Oliver He was this really nice guy. By the end of the meal we agreed on quite a lot – we just want politics to be better and the country to be less divided. It was really wholesome.
Additional reporting: Kitty Drake
Adrian and Oliver ate at Tangra in London W1
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